Images of Norway

My backyard

This is me

A very short autobiography

My name is Sverre Stølen. Correction, it is Sverre Petter Stølen, but I hate that middle name. Nevertheless, the middle and last name is the origin of the logo in the bottom right corner of my images. You might wonder, why doesn't my logo depict 'SS'? Hey, the origin of the logo is more than fifty years back, shortly after WW II when that abbreviation ( = Schutzstaffel) had utterly malign implications.

The images on this page are only miniature images - not thumbnail links. There are, however, some links to images in the text.
I was born before World War II (29 October 1936 to be exact) in a small community (see panorama) near the northwestern coast of Norway. Only 200 - 300 people lived there, quite off the main road. Actually, the main transport then was by steamships on the fjord.
We lived on a small farm with two cows, four sheep, a few hens, and a pig. Because of that we had plenty to eat during the five years when Hitler occupied the country. See also a picture of the farm houses (new window/tab) taken some thirty years later, a view of the valley, and a picture of the neighbor farm Stølen.
When I was six my sister arrived. My grandmother also lived with us, and some years we had a maid. We had no electricity then, and in winter evenings, before the kerosene lamps were lighted, my grandmother often proposed a "twilight hour", a time for meditation and togetherness.
Three years after the war we moved from the farm to Tingvoll where my father worked, only 12 kilometers away. There electricity had been available for decades, so that was the end of the twilight activities, like meditation and doing homework on the windowsill.
I went to school, of course, and apart from that read whatever I could find. At school I preferred mathematics and physics, learning languages required some hard work.
At the age of sixteen I had to go away to continue school, and I chose the rather faraway place Eidsvoll. I stayed there for three years, and I feel that this was the time and place I became an adult. (The image is of the paddle steamer Skibladner.)
After school I served my obligatory 16 months in the military, at a school for junior officers, communication branch at Jørstadmoen close to Lillehammer. A useful experience, then most experiences are at that age.
Then I went to The Technical University of Norway, now NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology (new window/tab), in Trondheim (new window/tab) to study Applied physics. "Physics" in this context means the sweepings left when useful parts like chemistry, electronics, and biochemistry are removed. The image illustrates a popular belief of what physics is.
I stayed at the university for six years after my final exam. During that time I acquired a doctor degree in the field of "Plasma and gas discharge physics". I never really used that knowledge in my work later.
After that I worked in a research organization in Trondheim, on the university campus. There has been varied tasks, but the main line of work has been the development of all kinds of weird measuring equipment for research. (The steelyard I inherited from my grandparents.)
After my final exams I married. That's what people do. We were married for twenty years, for better, for worse, etc. I have no reason to complain, though.
We got two kids, first a girl and six years later a boy. Now there are two grandchildren. Sure, I'm a grandpa, and during the summer I get a tan on the top of my head.
We divorced. That's what people do. Then I spent eight years enjoying the freedom, weekends and during my vacations roaming the wilderness, often the mountains, seeking loneliness.
Most people can't bear being alone. I savored it for eight years, then I suddenly had enough of it. Since 1991 I've had a very dear lady friend. And I still live on the quiet outskirts of Trondheim (new window/tab) (and so do my grown-up children). Every summer we spend six weeks in a seaside cabin near Kragerø (new window/tab). The rest of the summer, when the weather is nice, we go on excursions in the car or hike in the hills or mountains. I'm including a recent picture of myself.

 

Everything on this page is genuine. Even the footprints on the background are from my own shoes. I had to clean the scanner afterwards.